The court was hearing a petition filed by socialist leader Mithilesh Kumar Singh, urging the court to order the CBI to initiate a probe against Nitish and Tiwari after including them in the list of the accused in the four fodder scam cases.

The CBI in its submission said Mithilesh made the request late when most of the cases had been disposed of and therefore his petition shall be dismissed, but the court asked him to submit his rejoinder to the CBI by December 13.

The CBI told the court that during investigations Sinha had on May 25, 1996 submitted that an accused fodder supplier, Vijay Mallick, had handed over the money to Nitish and a conduit between scamsters and politicians, Umesh Prasad Singh, had paid the money to Tiwari.

The investigation agency is not in favour of proceeding against Nitish or Tiwari, citing lack of evidence and the fact that the four scam cases had been disposed of. Besides, the agency said, none of the witnesses ever admitted to supporting statements of late Sinha and Umesh who had accused Nitish and Tiwari of accepting money.

Former Bihar chief minister Lalu Prasad and 44 others were convicted by a CBI court on September 30 in the 17-year-old fodder scam which involved fraudulent withdrawal of Rs. 37.70 crore from Chaibasa treasury during 1994-1995 and kickbacks.